The Not Forever

Waldrop has been a leading figure in American avant-garde poetics for decades. This book finds him thinking about the objects and actions that compose everyday life and how those things point the way toward death. He begins, “an object upon which/ nothing depends// no matter what/ kind, if only// one and not none/ without// interior, I do not// choose to give more/ definite relations.” And the objects come: “book/ bell/ pig// to be// body of a wave disem-/ bodied…”; “spring-operated// hydraulic, instruments/ of war//… statue// made of earth, as/ much as possible like us.” They turn: “world// as if// opposite// as if// world. ” And they go: “The world I see—there—here—is the world I remember. What is to come is behind me. As I look back… // lute, skull, globe, hour- / glass, and // [end of / year] / clutter.” Waldrop strikingly comes to terms with the immediacy and frailty of these things, and by turns his own: “wait, creaky old/ elevator// lithe with/ gray-streaked hair, just/ around the corner.” (Oct.)